Yep–from an Etsy shop. It was already sold, so I have no idea how much she sold it for, but I do know that shipping alone was $40. I showed Cowboy while mentioning it in passing and then left it to be, thinking it would be so incredibly hard to find one downed tree to cut in to, let alone four trees of differing diameters.

But, little did I know that a storm in Overland Park a couple of months later would down massive trees, and then a local park would open its doors to let people bring their branches and tree trunks for the city to dispose of it. Our friends (Krissy & Alex) live just a couple of blocks away from this park, so when we heard what was going on, we all walked over there.

[Ah, when I had a tan and thought that was white.]

While looking for tree trunks, we found these awesome branches to use as the center pieces. And they were covered in moss. WHAT LUCK!

After scoping out the goods, we hid our finds amidst the piles (like other people were going to come steal our branches and trunks…haha! Do you see that pile behind us girls? That wasn’t even half of it!) and ran a quick errand to Lauren & Tyler’s house, where they just happened to have Tyler’s dad’s borrowed chain saw. Seriously…fate.

So, my hunk of a guy went to work chain-sawing…because he loves me, after all.

And slowly, but surely, we started to collect our pieces…

The next steps were my job…these guys had to be sanded completely smooth (and hopefully level) and then I gave them a coat of polycrylic.

Cowboy even carved our initials and the date into the bottom.

We cut our center pieces, and then those also got a coat of polycrylic. (Check out that moss! I died!)

We used a 3/8-inch dowel rod to connect all of the pieces, drilling pilot holes into each piece and then connecting them. We didn’t glue anything, so it can be taken apart for easier storage.

What an awesome story! And what a beautiful cupcake stand. I was admiring it at your wedding, but I didn't know you had made it! You know Daniel and I ended up in St. Louis together purely by the Hand of God… I'll tell you about it sometime. It was rather fortuitous, as your borrowed chainsaw and free trees were (o;